Weidman recalls the night he took on three, roided wannabe gangsters

Former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman has a regular column for CREATORS.CO, and in his latest, he touches on the influence of wrestling in his life. The All American was an All American, and wrestled since he was kid. Wrestling led to Jiu-Jitsu, and wrestling is the basis of his MMA game.

And wrestling works fine on the street, too. This story begins with Weidman and now UFC light heavyweight Gian Villante going out to a club in Manhattan. It was around 2009, and Weidman was just getting started as a fighter. Three roided-out, 250+ pound, wannabe drug dealers walked into the club and started mean mugging the other patrons.

Villante is That Guy at the club, causing a ruckus, in good fun, without the intention of getting in a fist fight.

Weidman is that other guy who doesn’t start a thing but will throw down without hesitation if disrespected.

Toward the end of the night, Villante was outside challenging the roided wannabes to a fight, but they are refusing to get out of their car. Villante looks like a guy you wouldn’t want to get out of the car to fight.

So when Weidman goes outside to see what’s going on, one of the juiceheads comes flying out of the car to fight him.

”The biggest wannabe of them all runs over to me and throws an overhand right,” explained Weidman. “It was clear as day, slow motion, the most typical punch you can throw.

“He threw the punch and I just covered up. Then, I went for an underhook, and I knee picked him down to the ground. As I knee picked him, he pulled my shirt, and now he’s on his back and I’m just standing over him. Instead of throwing punches to a grounded opponent, I just started slapping him around a bit: backhand, slap across the face, backhand, into my forehand. I even gave him a noogie and just laughed; the bouncers eventually pulled me off, but everyone was laughing by now.

“The embarrassment definitely got to him. He stood back up and went for an encore: same punch, instant replay, blocked punch, underhook, knee pick, noogie. This time I pulled and honked his nose, embarrassing him further, and the whole time, his big juicehead friends just watched their buddy get pummeled.

“I just went up to them and said, ‘You gotta get in your car right now, or you’re gonna get your ass beat,’ and they just vanished.

“I don’t get in too many situations like this any more. I have a wife and three kids, so evenings out with Villante are rare. Plus, fighting is my career at this point, so I stay away from altercations unless I get paid for them, but at least I know that wrestling is still useful in a whole number of real-life scenarios.”

This is the Weidman of 2009, 2-0, and the time of the fight.

He is not that guy you want to fight if your skills consist of a decent bench plus a second runner up in a Tony Montana lookalike contest outfit.

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